A Burnt Memory: Lost
by PrInCeSsFBi
Summary: He missed it. There he admitted it. He missed being Henry. He missed having to mediate between Michael and Neal. He missed having to patch them up. White Collar/Royal Pains/Burn Notice crossover


**Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar, Burn Notice, or Royal Pains**

**A/n: I've been working on this for a couple of months now. Hank's point of view. This is one of three pieces that all interconnect involving the characters from all three shows. I'm playing with the idea of what would happen if Neal, Hank, and Michael knew each other. The other two are in my profile with different point of views and different scenes of this event they all are remembering.**

**Lost**

_The area around was desolate. It made Henry nervous and even though Michael hadn't said so he knew it made him anxious as well. Which was why the other had a tight leash on Neal, which the kid hated. Henry understood though, Neal was nothing compared to Evan. But unlike Evan, whose boneheaded plans usually fell apart the moment they started, Neal had a way of turning mud into gold and somehow thought they were a success from the start. It's hard though when everything you see is golden, something Hank envied about Neal. He wish he were that lucky. _

_But as he ran through the heat, the dusty air burning his lungs despite his morning jogs everyday as he surveyed their target. He hears the loud bang and looks over his shoulder to see Michael shouting, his gun in the air. Sliding beside the brush, the dirt on the ground disrupted by his body. Pulling out his sniper scope from the bag he saw the dead man on the ground and watched Michael talking to the other man, the man oblivious to the obvious danger he was in. Michael's body posture was the same as a rattle snake's rattle. Then the pit of his stomach dropped as they dragged out Neal, struggling, as he saw the blood covering his front. _

Hank jerked awake and ran a hand through his hair. Thunder echoed outside, his windows banging against the storm outside. He was proud of everything he had done with Michael and Neal but there were some things that just still haunted him, leaving him up at nights like this in a cold sweat.

_Hank had the sniper rifle in his hands, watching as the man continued to hold Neal, his life draining away._

"_Come on, Michael." Henry murmured. His doctoral instincts were screaming at him. Neal wasn't going to last long. He could see it on the kid's face. See it on Michael's face. Then he saw the flick of Michael's hand, and the unaware bodies of the two men looking at the scene waiting for their boss's direction. _

_Without blinking Henry shifted to the left and fired twice. The men were down before they knew what happened. When he looked back he saw Michael dropping his cool calm exterior, his silent anger holding his gun at the man with Neal. They were speaking then shouting and Henry could feel the sun making his neck sweat. The man raised his gun to Neal's head and Henry fired._

Hank moved around the darkness of his kitchen, his sounds being blocked by the thunder outside, and therefore not worried about waking up Evan. He drank the cold cup of orange juice, trying to get the feeling of the burning sun on the back of his neck to disappear. It was a long time ago. He didn't know what happened to the others but he tried to find out. Being burned isolated him though. Michael had turned into a mere memory of…

Easier times? Hank chuckled. Ironically, yes, because somehow being an unknown face in a third world country tracking a drug lord was easier than having to live up to all these responsibilities after he had been black listed from his hospital position. He wondered how long it would take before he was burned from this job. Or permanently with the way his luck was going. But this new life wasn't so bad. He had time to read….newspapers. And he ran everyday on the beach.

The thunder rolled outside at his bluff. He was happy yes, but he was bored. He wished he could have been like Neal and come up with some big extravagant plan to do something. Or like Michael who was still in the business for all Hank knew.

_Henry was whispering words of reassurances to Neal in the back of the Hummer before turning back to Michael, shouting at him ease up. Michael remained silent though and continued driving at reckless speeds trying to lose anyone that could be tailing them. They drove through one town after another town and another. Neal whimpered as they took a sharp turn. _

"_Michael!" Henry said not even bothering to look over his shoulder this time and focusing on Neal as he kept talking to the kid. He couldn't risk letting Neal fall unconscious and he couldn't do anything with the way Michael was driving. He fought the urge to pull on his curls in frustration. "Neal, Neal look at me." _

_Wide terrified eyes obediently looked away from the blood on Henry's hands and turned to the doctor's face. It would be like Neal to actually listen to an order in a time like this. Henry felt the lump in his throat and quickly tried to clench the emotions in his throat. He opened his mouth to ask Neal some brainless question to distract him but he threw himself over Neal at the BANG from the side of the car. _

Hank looked at his watched and groaned. He had to be up in four hours for a house call to Ms. Pillsbury and check her vitals after her spill.

He sighed relaxing back into the couch.

He missed it. There he admitted it. He missed being Henry. He missed having to mediate between Michael and Neal. He missed having to patch them up. He didn't run for the view. He ran because it was a habit. Sometimes he would carry a small stone in his palm, the weight like the bugs he would slip as he bent down to catch his breath.

It had just been easier to keep up with what had become his normality. It wasn't like their had been any grace period from being burned. He still felt the sting of the heat, the sudden helpless looks on his friends' faces. He wasn't like Michael. He couldn't detach himself from others. Neal and Michael had been his friends. His first real friends that didn't ask him questions about his past or weigh him down with responsibilities, and he had been ripped away back into a world where he didn't have that. Evan was his brother and would always be his brother but he just didn't understand Hank's need to have weightlessness.

"_Yeah," Henry sighed as he answered the phone._

"_You've been blacklisted. You're burned." And that was it. _

"_What?" Henry frowned. He didn't hear right. He gripped the phone at the dial tone. "Hello?"_

"_What's wrong," a voice asked him. Michael had appeared beside him suddenly, Neal behind him looking on curiously. Henry jumped back, his survival instincts kicking him into gear, like he had physically been burned by Michael's presences. _

It had been a very interesting night. Typically Evan didn't even seem to blink an eye when Hank had called him in a rush to put the rest of his cash into the hidden account he had set up in case something like this had happened, not even catching the way Hank's voice had been tight in anxiety. That had been an interesting couple of days. More like hours because there had really been no end until the end. Michael and Neal didn't even need to ask any questions as they rushed to help him get back to his home before he would have been locked out of any travel. And their goodbye had been even more abrupt.

Sometimes he wondered. Not a lot because if he thought too much on it, he'd obsess and then that would be all he thought about and then there'd be a weekend full of hard liquor and a hangover come Monday morning realizing the Neal he had seen in the streets of New York had just been the alcohol talking. He'd done that once before he realized that it wasn't going to change anything.

He was still stuck in this same, normal cycle, and maybe, just maybe…Neal and Michael were off in some exotic hot country getting ready to kill each other.

Without him.

**A/N: I am going in the timeline that Hank just left for the Hamptons shortly before Neal was arrested and jumped out of the window. **

**ANYWHO! Go read the others! REVIEWS MAKE ME FEEL WARM AND FUZZY INSIDE!**


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